The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems of a vehicle typically include a blower motor. Often these blower motors are direct current brushed blower motors. Additionally, the system includes a power control module such as a linear power module, a pulse width modulator, or a relay resistor module, all of which provide variable speed control of the blower motor. One difficulty associated with these power control modules is that they typically generate a significant amount of heat, which must be dissipated to preserve the life of the module. The traditional method for dissipating heat has required that a heat sink attached to the power control module be designed individually for each power control module design. In addition, it is typically required that the heat sink be inserted into the airflow of the HVAC system to cool the electronic components inside of the power control module. These specially designed heat sinks have generally been large and cumbersome and typically raise the cost of the power control module by at least 15%. The requirement that the heat sink be located within the airflow of the HVAC system negatively influences the system noise and airflow.
Thus, it would be beneficial to design an apparatus and develop a method for dissipating heat from power control modules that is relatively inexpensive, and does not negatively affect system noise or air flow.